


The Nights Were Made For Saying Things That You Can't Say Tomorrow

by compos_dementis



Category: Death Note
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-29
Updated: 2015-05-29
Packaged: 2018-04-01 19:43:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,245
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4032292
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/compos_dementis/pseuds/compos_dementis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mello and Matt share a small, intimate moment in the dark. Some things you can only say aloud when you know you can't be seen.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Nights Were Made For Saying Things That You Can't Say Tomorrow

Matt’s eyes ache both from the darkness and the lack of sleep. It’s a nightly occurrence, Matt returning to bed after a night spent staring too long at computer monitors, and now he strains to see the dark, shadowy outlines of the room in the blackness. There’s nothing, though. He blinks, and even when his eyes adjust, there’s nothing to look at.

So he rolls onto his side, sees Mello in the bed a few feet away from him. Matt doesn’t have a bed, just a mattress on the floor -- they’re still working on sleeping arrangements, but Matt doesn’t mind it, in all honesty. From here, he has to look up to see Mello, as he always has, sees just the silhouette of him barely illuminated by the moonlight through their grime-crusted windowpane. Mello’s breathing, and that’s a comfort in itself these days, but it’s not deep enough to imply sleep.

“Shut up,” Mello’s voice comes as a sleepy whisper, slipping through the dark.

Matt blinks. “I didn’t say anything.”

“I can hear you thinking. You’re keeping me up.”

Silence settles in again for a moment, Matt smiling just slightly as he tries to get comfortable, to no avail. It’s hard to sleep when his mind is running a mile a minute. This is the case with most of them, he supposes, the children both fortunate and unfortunate enough to be part of the line -- it’s impossible to turn off your brain.

“Remember that night you couldn’t sleep, when we were twelve,” Matt whispers, though there’s no one else in the room and thus no need to keep his voice low -- it just feels appropriate to maintain as much of this blessed silence as possible. “It was righ’ before midterm exams. You and I built a blanket fort. Remember?”

A pause, but then Mello shifts under his blankets so that he’s on his back. Matt can see just the outline of his nose from this angle, barely visible.

Mello says back, “Yeah, I remember.” His voice sounds strange, distant -- but Matt’s stuck on this memory now. The smallest scrap of something resembling normalcy.

“You couldn’t fall asleep ‘til you had your head in my lap. I was up all night jus’ reading to you... even after you passed out.” Matt can’t help the smile on his face now at the recollection. “You slept like a rock after that. I kept on reading, I was so determined to keep you asleep, I jus’--- I read until sunrise. Couldn’t talk at all the next day.”

“A small blessing,” Mello teases, and Matt can sense the smile there, too; and they both laugh at that, so softly it’s nearly inaudible, but it’s there nonetheless. And it’s been so long since he’s heard Mello laugh that he’s almost convinced he’s dreaming.

There’s a quiet that crawls back in after the brief laughter dies away. It feels like grief.

“What happened,” Mello says, and Matt wants to pretend that he doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but he does. In a way, he always knows what Mello is talking about. “Do you ever wish you could go back?”

He doesn’t even have to think about it. “It wouldn’t matter to me one way or another.” 

Sometimes he misses it, yes. The beautiful summer days, the softer moments between studies, being shushed in the library or scolded for a Kool-Aid-as-hair-dye mishap in the restroom. And he misses how Mello used to be, too, how they both used to be. This moment now feels almost like those days; if Matt closes his eyes, he can pretend Mello’s hair is slightly shorter, his face rounder, eyes gentler. He can pretend things are all right.

But they aren’t. And closing his eyes won’t make a damn bit of difference when it’s so dark, anyway. It all looks the same to him.

Matt asks, “Do you?”

“No,” Mello replies, too instant to be genuine. “This is where I have to be now. I can’t waste time thinking about the past.”

He gets it, but only because he’s needed here, too. He’ll be Mello’s shadow for as long as the other is willing to let him stick around.

“Why wouldn’t it matter?” Mello finally asks. “You said it wouldn’t matter to you, but why? You were safe there, why the fuck would you give that up to chase after someone you weren’t even sure you’d find? It’s reckless. No, beyond that, it’s idiotic.”

If they weren’t completely alone in the room, he’d wonder if Mello was doing this solely as a show of authority. Instead, he finds himself baffled in the face of Mello’s genuine concern over him.

Matt responds barely above a whisper, “You’re all I’ve ever had, that’s all.”

“That’s the sappiest shit I’ve ever heard you say.”

“--Yeah, maybe.” It’s true, though. Mello was his only friend at the orphanage, and two practically inseparable save for Mello’s hunger for that winning position. 

And Matt has no illusions as to what Mello’s willing to do to get to that metaphorical finish line; Mello’s bound to get them both killed trying to get what he wants. Matt finds himself to be disturbingly okay with that.

“I think...” And this is dangerous waters he’s wading, but Matt pushes onward. “I think I’d be content to just spend the rest of my life with you. Y’know? I don’t have... family, or friends, or... anything like that. None of us do. I just think that--- I dunno. If you wanted to run off and be a bee farmer, I’d want to help you build hives. If you wanted to run an illegal gun smuggling business, I’d be there running them across the border with you. I don’t care about the setting, Mello, I don’t care if we’re at Wammy’s or if we’re here or if---”

If we die.

“...Whatever it is you want, I just want to do it with you.” Matt wishes he had a cigarette suddenly. His mouth feels dry.

Matt counts the seconds silently, terrified of the darkness now, how he can’t see Mello’s expression, how he can’t hear him breathe. It takes what feels like a full few minutes for Mello to respond, even when he knows it hasn’t been that long. For a moment, he even wonders if Mello’s fallen asleep. Maybe that’d be for the best.

Finally, Mello scoffs, and says bitterly, “You do realize you just said you wanted to marry me, right?”

He’s painfully aware of the sound of his own heartbeat suddenly. More seconds tick bye and Matt can’t even bring himself to laugh it off like he normally would, scramble for some excuse, because they both know what this is. Whatever’s happening between them, it crossed the boundaries of friendship years ago, and now it’s something else, something strange and nameless.

There’s nothing to say.

Mello rolls onto his side again, this time facing Matt in the dark, though they can’t see one another, apart from a slight shine in Mello’s eyes from the moon.

Softly, he sighs, “Go the fuck to sleep, Matt.”

The fear, the tension in Matt’s shoulders, it all rolls away. It eases out of him gently until he finds he can relax again, and as his eyes finally adjust, he can see Mello’s arm lower, under the guise of getting comfortable, so Mello’s fingertips nearly touch the floor.

Matt reaches out, instinctively.

Their fingers barely brush, and Matt is tugged down into sleep.


End file.
